Film **

On
one hand, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was one of the most eagerly
anticipated sequels of recent memory, returning a major action star to the role
he was most well known for.On the
other hand, if you took Terminator 2 at face value, there’s no way that
T3 could even exist.

The
newest installment in the franchise offers a few kicks, but suffers under the
weight of two major flaws:it
sorely misses the guiding hand of James Cameron, and it violates the basic
philosophy of the first two movies.Basically,
T3 takes a fatalistic approach and suggests that the events of the future
cannot actually be changed.Which,
of course, begs the question of why all the traveling back in time in all three
films to try to alter the course of history?

For
some twenty years now, the Terminator mythology has pointed toward a
future of self-aware computers and a great man vs. machine war that humans
eventually win.The purpose of the
movies was to show the machines sending back assassins to eliminate the future
resistance leader, John Connor (Nick Stahl in this entry), while the humans in
each case sent back a lone warrior to insure that Connor would survive.

As
much as I think the filmmakers wanted fans to just sit back and have a good time
with this installment, it’s impossible to escape the fact that the philosophy
has been altered in such a way that makes the basic premises of all three
pictures moot.Even in T3, agents
from both sides in the future are going back to our time to alter events, even
though it’s telling us we CAN’T change the future.Yikes.

At
any rate, this picture picks up in real time 12 years after the events of T2.John Connor is now a young man forever altered by the events of his
youth.Though he and his mother,
with the help of a reprogrammed T101 terminator (Schwarzenegger) seemed to have
prevented Judgment Day (the day the machines became aware and launched an all
out annihilation attempt on humanity), he’s still haunted by nightmares and
visions.He lives alone as a nomad,
off the grid, with no address, phone number or anything else…he practically
doesn’t exist.

But
something is going wrong…once again, the machines of the future have sent back
an agent to eliminate him.This
time, it’s the TX (the lovely Kristanna Loken), aka the terminatrix.Like her T2 predecessor, she is a liquid metal alloy machine, but
unlike him, she sports a solid endoskeleton and she’s capable of forming
complex weapons (including some sort of energy pulse cannon that obliterates
just about anything in its path) and interacting with other machines to control
them.

The
resistance has sent back yet another reprogrammed T101 to protect not only John
Connor, but his future lieutenant Kate Brewster (Claire Danes).Since we’re now several years past the date of Judgment Day, an
explanation is in order, and we get one:the
darkest day in human history was only delayed.Preventing it is impossible.

Or
is it?The current timeline of
events calls for Kate’s father, an air force general, to implement the
infamous Skynet computer on the very day this movie takes place.If they can somehow get to him and stop the launching of the
artificially intelligent system, all will be well.But between them and him stands the TX, and she doesn’t
intend to fail in her mission.

I
mentioned earlier that the movie misses James Cameron’s touch.The best action sequences to me aren’t imagined and executed, but
rather orchestrated.Though there are plenty of big bangs for your buck here,
it’s all chaos and noise.There’s
no sense that the scenes are building to something or that the intensity is
increasing.Everything is simply
all out.Lulls come because the
action runs out, not because we’re being given something to think about or the
suspense is building.There’s
plenty of spectacle here, and better effects technology than ever before, but
frankly, nothing in the film compared to Cameron’s sequences in T2.

Jonathan
Mostow also directed the submarine movie U-571.He knows how to deliver a big scene with plenty of
percussion, but I’m still waiting for him to piece together an action sequence
that doesn’t seem so…well, pieced together.

Now
that our old friend Arnold has become the Term-eliminator in real life and taken
over as governor of California, he says his film career will be put on hold.T3 leaves room for another installment, but frankly, I don’t
know if I even want to see it.Right
now, I think I’d just prefer pretending the story ended with T2 as it
should have, while making believe that this movie never happened.

Video
****

Warner’s
anamorphic presentation is nothing short of spectacular.This is an action film that delivers all the goods from a visual
standpoint, and everything renders to digital presentation beautifully.There are lots of daylit scenes and lots of night ones as well…colors,
image detail and sharpness never seem compromised.I noticed no grain or compression evidence; everything seemed smooth
sailing from start to finish.

Audio
****

Likewise,
the 5.1 audio really rocks with plenty of multi-channel action to keep you in
the middle of events.The rear
stage stayed busy during the big sequences, and the subwoofer signal was almost
constant from the rumblings of machines, explosions and gunpower.Dialogue was clean and clear and the mix was extremely dynamic and
forceful.Excellent effort.

Features
****

This
two disc set comes fully loaded with extras.On disc one, you get two solid commentary tracks; one by director
Jonathan Mostow alone, who discusses the project development, his ideas, working
with the actors, and bits of trivia on the making of the movie.The second features Mostow with his cast, each recorded separately but
edited together smoothly.Schwarzenegger,
Stahl, Danes and Loken all chime in with their thoughts and memories.This is Claire Danes first DVD commentary, and also probably the best one
Arnold has done so far.I mostly
enjoyed Kristanna Loken’s anecdotes, even though she sounded slightly hoarse
from her then promotional tour for the film.The first disc rounds out with trailers for the movie and video game.

Disc
Two features everything else, starting with a brief introduction from the
governor himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger.An
HBO documentary follows, plus one of the best deleted scenes I’ve ever viewed
(in case you were wondering how the T101 got its look!).There’s a brief gag reel, an extensive visual effects lab so you can
see how the big scenes were created, and even manipulate the effects yourself
for both the underwater sequence and the future world of machines.A Skynet database allows you access to files on the movies’ main
characters and mechanized bad guys, while a timeline takes you through all the
events.Rounding out are
storyboards and looks at the costumes, toys and video games, plus content for
your DVD ROM.

Summary:

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines tries to carve an original niche for itself by
going against the basic philosophical thread of the first two movies.Far from being an intriguing premise, it’s a fatal flaw for which the
return of Arnold Schwarzenegger as our favorite futuristic cyborg and some
over-the-top action sequences can’t compensate.